Epic Rampage of Violence and Destruction

[Yarnil]

Or its something else... Like a stroke or something...

[Sapphire Silk]

While extremely rare, it's not unheard of for even small doses of relatively 'softer' drugs like weed or ecstacy to trigger a psychotic episode, especially if the user is a habitual alcoholic, and not a habitual drug user.

It's also possibly he may have mental health issues, and went off his meds.
But I agree, the simplest and mostly like explanation is meth.

I have never heard of pot inducing a psychotic episode. Nor has there ever been a recorded case of overdose. It's actually a pretty safe drug. There have been some studies alleging an increased risk of psychotic illnesses (not the same thing as inducing psychosis), but those results are heavily debated, and I've never actually seen a case (and unfortunately, I've seen a lot of drug abuse in the ER)

Ecstacy is another matter, but I'm still inclined to think meth or PCP first.

The problem is both pot and Ecstacy tend to be laced with other drugs, and the user doesn't know it until the drug screen in the ER.

Or its something else... Like a stroke or something...

Stroke doesn't induce this kind of violence. Mental status changes, yes. But there are also physical symptoms with stroke (one sided weakness, slurred speech) that make it easy to diagnose.

He could simply have a mental illness, diagnosed or undiagnosed, that reared its ugly head. However, Schizophrenia and bipolar disorder usually manifest in the 20's. Don't know how old this guy was.

[Barefootgirl]

Stroke doesn't have an effect like that - it is more disabling than anything else. He may have had an acute schizophrenic episode, but i would suspect drugs first and foremost.

It sounds like it was a good thing that noone was hurt.

[Jester]

Dispatch: "Well, we'll take your number and someone will get back with you."

they suspected it was ecstasy.

Lovely police department. Responsive and well-trained.

Ecstasy. Yeah, right. There are many drugs it might have been, and despite the manager's opinion, it could simply have been alcohol. But unless they were (heavily) laced with something nasty, no way this was triggered by pot or ecstasy. Not a chance.

Pot: He would have stolen all the Twinkies.
Ecstasy: He would have humped the vending machine.

Ripped shit apart? Required 7 people to take him down? No. Freakin. Way. Not pot or ecstasy.

[nicolecj]

An amphetamine for sure... but it could be one of many. Maybe the cops know about a bad crop of ecstasy that is going around, that would explain why they thought that drug in particular. If he bought something at the bar and took it with the expectation that he would fall in love with the bedspread, it would be quite a shock to become a violent criminal.

[Shalom]

Speed mixed with alcohol is my guess, he probably bought pills thinking they were ecstacy. Idiots, they never seem to learn that dealer =/= trustworthy..

[cos] “This is an illegal drug, and therefore you are not sure of what you are getting. Which makes it a bad thing for you to take anyway... You can not get an assurance that it's gonna be great. And if it isn't great, you can not return it! See, pushers don't take back nothing bad, man. See it's not like if you buy a piece of meat. If mom goes to the store and she says "I want a piece" and she takes it home and two hours later it's green, she'd take the meat back and throw it in the butcher's face. Splat! "You rotten sonofagun you gave me some green meat!" (. . .) It ain't like that! It ain't like that with a coke dealer. You buy some coke. "Is it any good?" "Well it's only stepped on once, man." And you take it home and open it up, and let's say he sold you some Bab-O, and you go snort, hork and the next thing you say is [incoherent babbling], and your friends say "What's the matter?", and you say [pinched nose voice] "Oh nothing, there's nothing wrong with me, just a little blockage, I have to go to the dentist and get it blown out..."” [/cos]

by the way, chemically speaking, E is an amphetamine, but it's not a stimulant like meth, it's an analogue of mescaline.

[emilochka]

If he bought something at the bar and took it with the expectation that he would fall in love with the bedspread, it would be quite a shock to become a violent criminal.

"Fall in love with the bedspread" - fantastic description!

[Betweenshades]

This actually could have ended worse than it did. I'm glad no one got hurt!

[Howler]

....remodeling a police department building.

*snicker*

Oh, and much love for the avatar-thingy! Stargate is one of my favorite movies, and SG:1, SG:A, and (to a lesser extent) SG:U are great shows.

[Seshat]

I agree that it seems more PCP-ish.

Or a sudden onset of one of the more severe mental illnesses. But to go from showing no signs to something that severe seems very unlikely - in my rather limited experience. In all the cases I'm familiar with, onset has been more gradual.

[nicolecj]

"Fall in love with the bedspread" - fantastic description!

Long ago I discovered that taking ecstasy can make you fall desperately and passionately in love with any number of inanimate objects. Especially if that object is fluffy, patterned, or emitting any kind of sonic pulse – like a speaker with a heavy bass beat.

What? I never claimed to be well behaved.

[Andara Bledin]

There have been some studies alleging an increased risk of psychotic illnesses (not the same thing as inducing psychosis), but those results are heavily debated, and I've never actually seen a case (and unfortunately, I've seen a lot of drug abuse in the ER)

I've known a few people who don't do pot because they become incredibly paranoid while on it, which seems to be the most common non-standard reaction.

^-.-^

[Gaki]

Sounds like PCP to me but whatever the hell he was on that really sucks for everyone who had to deal with him.

I work at a gas station that sells part of the mixture to make Meth and believe me, the meth heads who come in are never like that. I'm betting on PCP but who knows? Drugs have different effects with different people but for some reason everyone I've ever seen who was on E was most definitely not violent. I mean unless we're talking about violently in passionate love with me (and the door...and the lamp...and the couch...)

This is nuts though. Huh...he probably had no idea something he took or drank was laced with something else, that's my bet. Nobody sane would take something that would make them this out of control. At least...you'd hope...

The seven people thing is what clued me in to PCP; Angel Dust tends to give people INHUMAN strength with no direction in which to release it. They have some CRAZY rush that allows them to do incredible things like fight off large numbers of people and even half-pick up cars. Shit is nuts.

[Sapphire Silk]

The seven people thing is what clued me in to PCP; Angel Dust tends to give people INHUMAN strength with no direction in which to release it. They have some CRAZY rush that allows them to do incredible things like fight off large numbers of people and even half-pick up cars. Shit is nuts.

I've seen tweakers get pretty violent. Meth burns out your brain.

PCP . . . oh man. I've seen those fuckers break 4 point leather restraints with 8 people (including me) sitting on top of them.

Damn near broke my ribs. Owww.

[Jester]

I'm going to chime in again and say the drug was probably not acid (aka LSD). One of my old high school friends once described being on acid very eloquently: "You're ten feet tall and bullet-proof." The thing with acid, though, is you FEEL ten feet tall and bullet-proof. Unlike PCP (and other drugs), it doesn't ACTUALLY make you any stronger or more resilient to anything or anyone. It's a hallucinogen, nothing more.